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Norwegian Wood

Earlier this week we were traveling with the Lady de Gloves and we heard Norwegian Wood by the Beatles. It ends:

And when I awoke I was alone
This bird had flown
So I lit a fire
Isn’t it good Norwegian wood?

We have been listening to the Beatles station on Sirius XM and we concluded that John has an issue with women.

Sidebar: Yes we know it is the anniversary of John’s death. He and the Beatles are great despite this. His relationship with women struck a cord with folks but it was a little weird. Folks are at least a little weird. End Sidebar.

We concluded that the fire burnt the house down as an act of revenge. The Lady disagreed. Today on Sirius Chis Carter said it was about burning the house but we didn’t catch the cite. Fortunately, Al Gore’s invention brought us this:

The meaning of this song is explained. It is credited to Lennon/McCartney although it seems Lennon wrote most lyrics.

“I came in and he had this first stanza, which was brilliant: ‘I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.’ That was all he had, no title, no nothing. I said, ‘Oh yes, well, ha, we’re there.’ And it wrote itself. Once you’ve got the great idea, they do tend to write themselves, providing you know how to write songs. So I picked it up at the second verse, it’s a story. It’s him trying to pull a bird, it was about an affair. John told Playboy that he hadn’t the faintest idea where the title came from but I do. Peter Asher had his room done out in wood, a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine really, cheap pine. But it’s not as good a title, Cheap Pine, baby…
So she makes him sleep in the bath and then finally in the last verse I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue in cheek. She led him on, then said, ‘You’d better sleep in the bath’. In our world the guy had to have some sort of revenge. It could have meant I lit a fire to keep myself warm, and wasn’t the decor of her house wonderful? But it didn’t, it meant I burned the fucking place down as an act of revenge, and then we left it there and went into the instrumental.”
Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles [Emphasis added]

Yup, John and the Beatles had an interesting relationship with women. And we got both the lyrics and their meaning right for once. It is time for a happy dance!